In high school, I was self-admittedly addicted to massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs)—Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft (WoW) and Turbine’s Dungeons & Dragons Online, in particular. I played for the interactive storytelling experience of the games. The Tolkien fangirl in me thrilled to quest alongside elves, dwarves, and orcs. However, my in-game competitive streak—or rather, lack thereof—was in no way nearly as extreme as those who played to win.
I was curious about just how intense these multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) games could get, to say the least. So, after much coercing from my online friends, and the few real-life friends I had that were actually interested in video games, I downloaded what was—at the time—the latest PC gaming hit: League of Legends (LoL).
Now, as someone with more of a casual gaming attitude, I went from playing relatively solo to working with a team of five. The familiar grind of WoW where I tried to level up my clichéd blood elf hunter as I scrounged the plains of Azeroth transfigured into teeth-grating, keyboard smashing sessions spent trying to defend my team’s Nexus from a never-ending barrage of minions and enemy champions. Additionally, during my brief stint into the world of LoL, I was introduced to a lot of new words (“Farming,” I would later find out, had nothing to do with planting crops).
It was here, in Summoner’s Rift, that I first heard someone mention eSports. The term had been thrown around in the team chat by one of my big-headed teammates who thought that he could make it big time (something I can recall being unimpressed about). Still, with my interest piqued, I decided to look the term up.
So, what are eSports? A diminutive for “electronic sports,” eSports have also been referred to as competitive/professional gaming, or pro-gaming. They can be viewed as a form of sport whereby competitions are facilitated via video games, and are refereed through human-computer interface. The competitive component of eSports commonly comes from organized multiplayer online video game competitions, where professional players compete in games from a variety of genres such as: MOBA, first-person shooter (FPS), fighting, and real-time strategy.
Additionally, the earnings of professional gamers are no joke. The best of the best can make up to six figures—more, if you’re really good—per year off of pro-gaming tournaments. For example, notable eSports sponsor RedBull reported that the professional gaming team known as Evil Geniuses raked in approximately $8.9 million from a collective of tournaments held in 2015. With so much fame and fortune on the line, I can see where the allure of eSports comes from. However, I don’t think that I would be able to pro-game, regardless of whether or not I had the time or skills to do it.
There has been much speculation as to whether or not eSports players can be considered actual athletes. While I agree that the stereotypically stationary lifestyle of an eSports player (or any gamer, really) is far from the conventional athleticism of traditional sports, I have to give kudos to the pro-gamers who have made a career out of something that they enjoy doing. It takes a certain kind of person, with a very specific kind of talent and work ethic, to be able to excel in-game while focusing on a computer screen for hours on end. So, to anyone who puts hours into rising through the ranks, or anybody who aspires to reach the pro-gamer status: Good luck and GG, friend.